Have you noticed, like some others have, that global warming advocates havebegunpoppingupeverywhere to tell us how the temperatures, wildfires, and windstorms of this summer are a result of global warming? These explanations usually follow along the lines of “these events are so extreme and so unprecedented, it is almost certain the human-caused global warming was a contributing factor.”

Well, it turns out that this summer’s events are not so extreme and unprecedented as the advocates would like us to believe. As John Adams said, “facts are stubborn things”… and it usually helps if they don’t contradict your position.

A climate study done by an international team of climate scientists from four countries in Europe, recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the summer climate was warmer during both Roman and medieval times than it is today. Further, they found a significant cooling trend in the climate over the last 2,000 years (see chart). In the researcher’s words, the cooling trend they found “is not negligible when compared to global warming” and suggests that “climate reconstruction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia.”

Of course, mankind was not contributing significant amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere during Roman and medieval times, bringing into question the idea that current weather-related events must necessarily be driven by human-produced carbon dioxide, and subsequent global warming. And in addition to the fact that current warm temperatures are by no means unprecedented, it turns out that severe, destructive windstorms have also occurred in the past, ironically during a period in which global temperatures had reached “a minimum.”

John Adams was right, facts are stubborn things. And the facts support the position that we ought to avoid costly and ineffective policies to combat an always-changing climate. Instead, we should do what we can to adapt to weather patterns that will happen whether we burn coal or not.